The invention relates to a magazine for a device of a measuring system for determining an analyte concentration in a body fluid sample. Such a system, which contains consumable analytical elements, for example lancets or test elements, in a plurality of chambers, is described in EP 0 951 939 B1 (see also, U.S. Pat. No. 6,497,845 B1). The invention further relates to a measuring system comprising such a magazine and to a method for controlling a removal unit of such a device, with which consumable elements can be removed from the chambers of an inserted magazine.
Magazines of consumable elements for measuring systems for determining analyte concentrations in human or animal body fluid samples must adhere to strict manufacturing tolerances for the chambers of a magazine to be filled automatically with consumable elements and for these elements to be removed without damage by a removal unit of a handheld device. Even small deviations from a defined chamber geometry can cause the consumable element to jam in a magazine chamber and therefore not be removed, or the respective magazine chamber cannot be filled with a consumable element at all.
Typically, these magazines are discarded after the consumable elements contained therein have been used. The costs associated with the production of magazines therefore account for a considerable portion of the overall costs of a measuring system or a measurement for determining an analyte concentration of a body fluid sample. This applies in particular to magazines comprising a relatively large number of chambers for small consumable elements because the manufacturing tolerances that must be adhered to become stricter as the miniaturization increases. On the other hand, however, the costs of a magazine must be apportioned among the number of consumable elements contained therein, and hence among the number of measurements that are possible with the magazine, which tends to lead to rising overall costs for a reduced number of magazine chambers.